https://www.listennotes.com/e/33686e7cfb8a4f209a516af7bff82f31

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I have the problem with the vegan vegetarian narrative talking about plant and animal protein being the same. It's interesting when you think about the difference between animal proteins and plant proteins. You require about 6 cups of quinoa to equal 1 small chicken breast or 1 small beef patty.

It still won't work because of all the protein inhibitors that are in the quinoa.

Clinically, I've actually seen benefit of combining collagen protein with actual skeletal muscle because now essentially you're eating the whole animal.

If people just eat plants and no fat and just carbs all the time, even though they hate their lives, their odds of dying from heart disease go down. What do you say to those arguments? You're listening to The Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Have you just taken a lot of crap for standing up and saying eat more meat with faces?

I have. You know, it's interesting because protein is one of the most controversial macronutrients. People are very emotionally attached.

Since when? Like, when did this become a thing? People have not been emotionally attached to their burgers.

You know, it's so interesting when you think about fat and you think about carbohydrates. You know, some people will say fat is good for you. You've got other people that will say that it's not. And sugar, no one will argue that Twinkies are bad for you. But when it comes to dietary protein, because it has a face, people make very emotional decisions and totally ignore the science.

Oh man, I feel like I can really be myself with you, Gabrielle. So are you saying just straight up that plant proteins do different things in the human body than animal proteins?

You are absolutely correct. There is a difference between animal protein and plant protein. And listen, these are hard, fast biological numbers, right? You can't change this. We cannot argue that plant protein and animal protein are the same.

Wait a minute. What if it tastes like a hamburger, but it's made out of plants? As long as it tastes like a hamburger, it's the same, right?

Arguably, if there's more than one ingredient in your burger, you're eating the wrong thing.

Okay, what about salt? Tell me I can have salt in my burgers.

I mean, listen, you can salt your burger, but it shouldn't be a necessary part of the meat that you're eating.

I guess I'm being a little facetious here, but, but you are making the case, uh, one that I do support. Everyone listens to the show already knows that, but I want to pick your brain a little more deeply. The case that, look, they're not the same. First, tell me how you became aware of this, because I know they didn't teach you that when you were studying medicine. So what was your dawning awareness that, hey, wait a minute, a plant burger is not the same?

I actually was very lucky to have an interesting path. In my undergraduate at the University of Illinois, I studied human nutrition, vitamin mineral metabolism, and I was fortunate enough to be trained by one of the world-leading protein experts, who to this day is still one of the most well-established, well-respected clinical researchers that exist. And his name is Dr. Donald Layman. So that really changed my whole trajectory from undergraduate in vitamin mineral metabolism. That became my perspective.

So was his research funded primarily by the big commercial feedlot companies trying to make people eat more meat?

So actually, no, you know, he's had been in research for 30 years, so he's done 30 years of research. And he actually, you know, when you talk about the difference between animal and plant protein, one of the big differences is those branched-chain amino acids. And in particular leucine. And he happened to be a leucine expert.

Okay, tell us more about leucine.

So leucine is one of the essential amino acids. When we compare plant protein to animal protein, one of the biggest differences is the amount of the branched-chain amino acids. And, you know, of course there's also limiting amino acids, but the branched-chain amino acids, in particular leucine, is what actually stimulates your muscle. And, we all know that muscle is the organ of longevity and your survivability is directly related to the quality of your muscle tissue.

But, there's other amino acid. I mean, leucine isn't the muscle amino acid. We'd all be pumping leucine. I mean, glutamine is kind of an important amino acid. It's feeling left out right now. So, what's so special about leucine?

Yeah, leucine is the key amino acid as it relates to muscle protein synthesis. So, it triggers this MTOR signaling, so mechanistic target of rapamycin, it triggers this. And subsequently, you have muscle protein synthesis. And that's why leucine is so important. And in particular, the dosing of leucine is so important.

Now we're getting somewhere. In Superhuman, I talk about, all right, mTOR, it's actually bad for you. It causes cancer and chronic inflammation, except it's also really good for you because it gives you muscles. So it's about like Can you have large amounts of it sometimes and none of it the rest of the time? But if you eat a bunch of meat every day, you get too much methionine and too much leucine, and your mTOR is always high and your cancer risk goes up.

You know, I'm so glad you brought this up, this mTOR issue. It's really interesting. There's mTOR in every tissue, and the mTOR in the muscle is different than mTOR in the liver and mTOR in the pancreas and mTOR in the brain.

When you say it's different, different levels, or it's molecularly different?

This is so great. It's the stimulus that is different. So in skeletal muscle, mTOR is exquisitely sensitive to leucine. But let's say in the liver, mTOR is more sensitive to insulin. So the biggest issue with mTOR is overall calories, in particular excess carbohydrates.

You're saying it's sensitive to overall calories? No, I mean carbohydrates. Because it seems like insulin was, you know, the training stimulus.

But as it relates to longevity, okay, protein and stimulating mTOR, there's never been any, any indication that there's a relationship to cancer ever with mTOR and cancer. That's correct. When it comes to mTOR and protein. So mTOR is stimulated by multiple ways.

You're saying it's not leucine that's raising mTOR so much, that it's sugar that's raising mTOR?

Exactly.

Okay, that is a true statement that mTOR is raised by sugar and people eat way too much sugar. So, oh my goodness, if you were to eat a diet that was incredibly high in leucine and not incredibly high in sugar, what happens?

Well, I mean, I can only tell you anecdotally that you would probably gain muscle if you have all the other amino acids, but I wouldn't be concerned about leucine intake and mTOR stimulation.

Okay. What about methionine and the other aminos that also raise it?

So I think that we don't know enough about that. I don't think that the data is very clear in humans. There is quite possibly some evidence for methionine restriction, but, you know, as it relates to humans, you know, it's interesting. The studies with methionine restriction are done in rats, and because rats have hair, the methionine requirement is different.

Plus rats are little jerks. I mean, they'll eat their babies. You shouldn't trust rats.

No, I actually heard guinea pigs do the same thing.

We've talked about methionine restriction and these amino acids. If you're listening to this going, what are these guys talking about? Amino acids are just the building blocks of proteins. So there's basically like different colors of bricks and you stack them in different orders and you get different proteins. And how many total amino acids are there?

There's 20. 9 are essential. And really the key that I'm most interested in are the branched chains and really in particular leucine, but I'm slightly biased.

Okay. Now, I'm slightly biased towards glycine. I'm like a glycine fanboy.

I wonder— I can appreciate as to why that would be.

Yeah, given that, you know, I'm all about the collagen.

Yeah.

And collagen is the highest in glycine. What I found was, to your point, it may not be the amount of methionine that you have in total, but it may be the ratio of methionine to glycine.

But, you know, that's— it is a very interesting point. And clinically, I've actually seen benefit of combining collagen protein with actual skeletal muscle because now essentially you're eating the whole animal. Well, I mean, throw in some other organ meats, but it's interesting when you think about the difference between animal proteins and plant proteins. When you think about trying to reach that leucine threshold for muscle protein synthesis, you require about 6 cups of quinoa to equal 1 small chicken breast or 1 small beef patty.

I don't think that's true.

It is. It's pretty— if you want to get that leucine threshold up to about 2.5 grams, you need about 4 to 6 cups of quinoa.

No, totally not true. It still won't work. You know why? Because of all the protein inhibitors that are in the quinoa. These are what lectins do and the other anti-nutrients in there. So even if you got your leucine levels to that level, you would have to eat even more protein from somewhere else to overcome the enzyme inhibitors that are in there. So, you cannot win with quinoa.

It's a terrible idea. It's calorically devastating. So, you're talking about so many carbohydrates, right? You're talking about— there's a meal threshold for carbohydrates and you have way blown past that with 4 to 6 cups of quinoa. It's a really bad idea. And, that's really where I have the problem with the vegan-vegetarian narrative talking about plant and animal protein being the same because I trained as a geriatrician at WashU. And, you know, for those people that have never heard of what geriatrics is, it's kind of exactly that. It's an aging population. So, I've seen the spectrum of longevity. And, midlife to later life, if your muscle tissue is not adequate, your survivability and your quality of life is incredibly diminished.

That makes so much sense. We know that as you age, you need more protein. In fact, even the anti-aging recommendations that I have, which involve some fasting and involve, you know, cycling your protein and some days of not having any protein to turn on autophagy and all the detailed stuff you could do. It says, hey, as you age or if you're working out heavy, then you need to bump up the protein to stop sarcopenia when your muscles start to go down.

Totally true.

And so you're seeing that in, in older people all over the place. But so many people, they hit 50. And I mean, I've seen this even, you know, some family friends, and they say, I'm gonna go on a vegan diet. And I'm like, oh dude, I know you got a few extra pounds, but when you do this, let me tell you what happened when I went on a raw vegan diet. You know, and I have this background of being really fat and all that. Here's what's going to happen. And they say, oh no, it's going to be fine. And then pretty soon it's like, oh my goodness, like they're Mr. Cranky Pants. And then joints hurt, sleep quality goes down, libido goes down, hair starts to fall out, Hashimoto's kicks in, right? You're like, man, have you had enough yet? It's like, no, it worked for a little while, it must continue working. By the way, this was me when I was a raw vegan.

So how long were you raw vegan?

I was raw vegan for about 8, 9 months, and then I started like, my teeth were breaking, I was cold all the time. But I was, I was so convinced that it works, I'm like, I need an even bigger salad bowl. And I had these like 2-gallon salad bowls, and I could like blend and soak I mean, I was really into this and I was absolutely convinced this was the way to do it. And then finally I said, okay, I need some meat. So I said, I'm, I'll just be a raw omnivore. So I take little strips of steak and I would dip them in vinegar and I'd feed them my salad.

Wait, a raw omnivore?

Yeah. I would just eat sushi and pieces of raw red meat and egg yolks. Right. And I can tell you raw egg yolks are pretty good. It's called Caesar salad dressing. And, uh, raw steak is, uh, called carpaccio. And it's pretty good on salad. It's not that big of a deal.

So my visual of all this was quite different.

Yeah, I know. I didn't eat like cow on the cob where you just go and pick up a cow and take a bite. They don't like that, right? But, uh, it, it did really become one of those things where I felt nourished and very full from a small amount of, of raw meat. And then I went off to bed. I'm like, I'm not eating raw yak that's been hanging for 3 months from someone's rafters. Like, I'm, I'm just gonna go back to eating cooked food.

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So if you look at the NHANES data, which is the largest collection of, you know, diet information that we have, about 2% are considered vegetarian. And of that 2%, it might be, I don't know, half of a percent are considered vegan, would consider them from the data vegan, but they're the loudest group. So you have the smallest percentage of individuals being the loudest.

You know where else that is? Online. When you look at, uh, just the, the breakdown of human psychology, about somewhere around 4 to 6% of people are sociopaths and psychopaths, and they're the trolls. They're the loudest ones because they're the trolls. But generally, most people aren't like that. So you get a few screaming jerks who just have to go, I'm gonna, you know, take this person down, and, you know, whatever. And it turns out that's not really a reflection of society. Are you saying that vegans are trolls? Did I hear you say that?

No, no. But I think actually what you're saying is totally right, is that it's not a big reflection of what society really is, but it's, it's the unintended consequences of the information that's being put out there is devastating, truly.

Now, let's say we have two people and one of them is like me. Okay, I'm going to be a raw vegan for a while again. And the other one is going to go on a diet that you'd espouse that's high in animal muscle meat, although you like eating the whole animal as well. So you got like Well, let's just say carnivore. You're cool. Someone who's on a carnivore diet or maybe nominal vegetables and someone who's all vegetarian, even with high tofu and other plant-based proteins. What changes are each of these people going to see?

So I'm going to tell you what I have seen in my clinical practice. My—

do that.

I do have vegan and vegetarians that usually convert by the time they get into my practice. As a group, they have the worst dentition that I've ever seen. So their teeth and their gums, hands down the worst. Multiple root canals, just gum recession, plaque, gum recession, really have issues with their teeth. They also have the lowest bone density and they're most likely to fracture something. I've also seen B12 deficiency. They have issues with memory, they have issues with nerves. Their omegas are very low. Anxiety, a ton of anxiety, a ton of digestive problems. This group of patients is my sickest.

All of this described me and I did this to be healthier.

You know, they have the worst sleep patterns. They really, in addition, and this is interesting, their capacity to deal with external stress, their threshold for resiliency is often the lowest. You know, and I don't have any evidence for that, but this is just what I see in clinical practice.

Well, there is evidence for it. And one of the basic cheapest measures of resilience is, hey, here's a pole, like a pull-up bar. Hold on. The longer you can hold on, the more resilience you have. And ask any CrossFit trainer. Uh, my old friend, uh, Reynolds would, would, would say the same thing. He said anyone who's vegan, I have to know what they eat when they come in the door for the first time. I have them hang on. Vegans drop off the first, they last 3 seconds. People who eat french fries all day long and cheeseburgers can hang on for 5 or 10 seconds. And someone who eats better, yeah, there's a measure of resilience. Can you hold on?

Yeah, it's really interesting. And veganism in and of itself is what, 100 years old? I mean, we weren't designed to do that. I mean, we simply weren't designed to do that as it relates to muscle tissue, as it relates to aging. It is just not how we are biologically designed.

What about for like, oh, a month of being a vegan?

Uh, what?

Just a month of being vegan.

I think that's actually, you know, some of my mentors are going to kill me, but I think that there's some benefit to that. And I can't, I think that there is this idea of cycling protein, which may have some benefit. Truly.

It turns on autophagy according to my research. And even back in 2011, the Bulletproof Diet, the first infographic comes out. There's one day a week of don't eat more than 15 grams of protein. I don't care if it's plant or animal, no protein. And magically you just get autophagy, or you could fast. So all the fasting for more than an intermittent fast today, really a lot of it's working because of autophagy. And you can, you can still eat some stuff and have autophagy.

And autophagy is very important. You know, there's mTOR and the concept of autophagy are really at odds, but autophagy allows for cellular repair, and then the quality of proteins that then become laid down are typically better. So it's— it— there is some benefit. But I want to tell you about the patients that I see that improve their protein intake just because you ask.

Hold on. We didn't find out what was going to happen if someone goes on to the carnivore diet.

I'm about to tell you. I can't wait to tell you.

This is the other part of that question just to make sure we're—

This is my subtle lead-in to the carnivore diet. How'd I do? Good? All right.

It was pretty good.

So, first of all, I am largely carnivore in nature. I'm not fully carnivore, but my dietary intake is largely protein. And when I say largely protein, it's about 125 to 150 grams a day. What about fat? So the rest of my diet is made up of fat. My fat might be 80 grams a day easily. You know, the carbohydrates are really on the lower end. It's 50 grams or less, and that's maybe divided in 2 meals if I'm going to have any.

It's a, it's a protein-forward style diet, although more of your calories are coming from fat than from protein on your diet.

I mean, the grams are much higher as it relates to protein.

Yeah, but the calories from the 80 times the amount of calories in fat, I think, is higher. But so, so by weight it's that way, and by calories you're getting more calories from fat. Okay, I got you. Just so people have a picture of what you're eating. Okay. Yeah.

And I will tell you that And this is for me and my other patients, they are able to maintain satiety.

You're never hungry. That's kind of nice.

You're never hungry. And you know, this is interesting. This is in the literature. So the research actually supports this. This is, I don't know, 30 years of research behind optimizing protein in the diet. So never hungry. Muscle mass is very easy to maintain. Body fat is—

You don't have to work out. It just happens, right?

I mean, I don't know. I just had a baby. I have to work out. But otherwise, Yeah, there's that. So, you have satiation, you're much less likely to go for a carbohydrate or some kind of craving. The muscle protein synthesis, muscle tissue is optimized. Of course, no one knows what the optimal protein, the optimal muscle mass is for anybody. But if you are taking in enough protein distributed throughout the day, so if you're actually hitting, you know, the reality is, is you should be hitting 50 grams to optimize the system per meal.

50 grams per meal. Okay.

So, when we talk about anti-aging, there's a trade-off. My perspective is how do we optimize muscle tissue? And do you need that much protein? Probably. I mean, you don't, right? So, this is on the higher end. But if I were to have a choice, I'd much rather increase my protein and lower my fat for body composition.

Oh, if you're looking to, to have a leaner body, yeah.

I would say the majority of individuals are not going to eat 1 gram per pound ideal body weight.

It's kind of hard to do that.

Exactly. And a lot of people find it so, and the literature doesn't support that high of amount. But in clinical practice and what I've seen in a decade, this is what I've found to be ideal. The recommendation really needs to be thought of in the amount of protein that you need. And you can get away with 1 gram per pound lean body mass. And listen, you could get away— the recommendations for aging, for those individuals that are aging is through the PROAGE study, you're looking at 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram. So, it's probably along the lines of what you're recommending. But I am telling you that if people have tried everything and the one thing that they haven't tried is optimizing their protein per meal. A minimum of 30 grams, a minimum of 30 grams of high-quality animal-based protein. And the reason is, is because you're thinking about those branched-chain amino acids, those amino acid levels. And then to really optimize the system, you're talking about 50 grams, 50 grams of protein per meal.

Carbs, what are your favorite kinds of carbs?

Well, you know, I don't really eat that many, truly.

Yeah, but you have favorites. Come on.

I wouldn't even count avocado as a carb. Do you count avocado as carbs? Mostly fat?

No, avocado is just a lifestyle.

It's not a carb. That's right. So if I was going to really eat some carbs, probably be just some greens, nothing crazy.

Greens aren't really carbs. I mean, there's no carbs in there.

But, you know, listen, if I, you know, I haven't trained really intensely where I am needing to have extra carbohydrates. I mean, the way in which you would need extra carbohydrates, your activity level, at least for someone my size, I'm 5'1" and 125 pounds. You know, I'd have to be doing a lot of activity.

You're a super lightweight then. So for the amount of protein you're eating, that's even more like, wow, super high.

It is. But it's how I get my carbs. So for every 100 grams of protein that you eat, 60 grams is converted to glucose through gluconeogenesis. So the majority of my carbs come from protein.

Now, I have worked with a lot of women over the years. I say worked with, I've coached, and then I've also just talked with people online, but serious deep conversations, and sometimes with clients where they're saying, Dave, I went Bulletproof and I felt great for 6 weeks. And I'm like, did you read the part about having some sweet potatoes on occasion or some white rice? And like, yeah, I didn't really do that because I was feeling so good. And then about usually 6 weeks for women and like 9 to 12 weeks for men, they're like, you know what, my sleep quality just went away. I'm not having dreams anymore. And then, oh, my cycles are regular and all these things. And magically, when once a week they have some carbs, or if they have, you know, a tablespoon of carbs with dinner, they're now on a low-carb— they can even still be in ketosis, but some carb diet. Magically it goes away. What's your take on that?

I've actually seen that happen often in my practice. I mean, I can't tell you for sure, but I sure can certainly say that what I've seen when we add carbs in, and we might add it in— so most of my patients are not nearly as extremely low carb as myself. When we add in carbs like carb backloading or carbohydrates at night, what I have found is that the reverse T3 goes down. And this might purely be due to it being less stressful and I'm adding in more calories for them, but I think that there's something inherently stressful for females in particular when they are carbless for a long period of time.

I think you're right. And for people listening, reverse T3 is one of the thyroid hormones. And if your thyroid's working right, you make T3, which turns up your energy and your calorie calorie burning, you feel good. But if it goes reverse T3, it basically, instead of turning up thermostat, it just does nothing. And so that's one of the big things that happens with what I call dirty keto. And I think everyone's been recommending have some carbs in the evening. Like I talk about having honey, which is—

yeah.

Oh my God, you can't have honey. Well, honey at least comes from animals. There you go. And but a little bit of honey for some people fixes their sleep just right before bed. But we're talking about a teaspoon or two, and it has to do with glycogen in the liver versus the muscles. So I would, I always tell people, you know, if you're gonna eat carbs, eat them for dinner. And if you want to feel stupid and hungry all day, have them for breakfast.

That's a great plan. I think that is 100% right on.

Now, for your clients, because you are pretty extreme, like, I feel like most women who went on your, your level of carbs would probably run into problems. Does it matter in your clinical experience if they're either In the middle of perimenopause or menopause or premenopause, does the carb versus protein ratio matter?

This is probably my favorite question. There is a carbohydrate threshold that changes. Carbohydrate metabolism changes when women go through hormonal changes. The literature isn't great on it, but—

No, it's terrible. I've looked at it.

But it's so interesting that when women hit the perimenopausal time, they all gain weight. They almost all gain weight. And it really, I believe, has to do with the ability to manage glucose because estrogen helps with glucose metabolism. It helps as it relates to glucose uptake in the muscle. All this stuff changes. So, if you're perimenopausal or going through hormonal changes, this actually is the time to reduce your carbohydrates.

So, intermittent fasting and fewer carbs at perimenopause.

Yes, sir.

But it feels like that's when people have the most anxiety and the most physical stress and the, the most sleep problems. It seems like a little bit of carbs at dinner might not be a bad thing.

Or a little sprinkle of progesterone.

Oh, well, there you go. Now you're talking about hormonal manipulation. That's, that's probably not natural. I don't know if we can do that.

But if you weren't going to do that, they could definitely try a little bit of carbs at bed. But really, that's where they would think about adding them.

So have a few more carbs or progesterone.

There you go.

Can you dip your carbs in progesterone?

Um, that's a good question. Only if it's honey. So if it's honey, maybe.

It sounds disgusting, and I don't think— I don't think it's— well, no, I guess you can take progesterone pills. I always see it as a cream, but I guess pills do work.

Actually, I recommend pills at night.

Why?

A sustained release. So you have the capacity to— yeah.

Okay, so there's one answer. So When you're, when you're going through changes, cutting carbs, okay, now you're done with perimenopause and you're actually in menopause. So what is the protein, fat, carb story there?

So that's interesting. I think that if you are going to be adjusting that fat-protein ratio, I really think that keeping an individual on a more optimized protein diet is very helpful. And you could actually cycle that with a more ketogenic style diet. So you focus on protein for a couple of months and then you take a month off where you're focusing more on higher fats and you can see how the body responds.

Oh, that's interesting. No one has ever proposed that. James Clement, who's a good friend who wrote a book called The Switch around switching to an autophagy and mTOR, came on the show and it was very well received by all the anti-aging gurus in my circle there. He talks about that. And certainly I've talked about like switching in a different way, but I've never heard someone say you should go on a protein with a big P and a little fat.

That's right.

And then switch over to high fat, low protein.

Yeah.

That's interesting thinking. What is the reason that someone might choose to do that?

Well, if you are going on a more optimal protein diet, which I think is so important as it relates to postmenopausal women because they are at risk for sarcopenia. So, this group is the quickest group to have destruction of their muscle tissue. Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle mass and strength. Often we think about this as a disease of aging, but truthfully, it actually can start in your 30s and certainly postmenopausal. There is a rapid loss of muscle tissue. So really focusing on keeping that tissue optimized is number one. And so going through a period of time where you are optimizing their protein, hitting 50 grams per meal, and this is really based not on their 1 gram per pound body weight because those women never eat that, but really hitting 50 grams per meal and having at least 2 meals. So, I would be happy with 100 grams of protein, maybe 150. They don't have to go that high. But if they wanted to, then what I have found, and this is in clinical practice, is that people get really sick of eating high protein. I have just seen it over and over again. And to improve compliance, one of the things that they can do. And actually, just like what you're saying as it relates to autophagy— but of course we don't know the length of time as it relates to autophagy in humans because those studies haven't been done— but going for a month of a higher fat, lower protein, switching them to a more ketogenic style diet can absolutely work.

It's really interesting. I got really sick of eating protein, and most proteins are like thick. And what I do when I want to get extra protein, and what I've advised even a lot of like movie star types to do is collagen protein. If it's done right, it doesn't add any thickness to a beverage. So is there any other way to get protein in without just being, I'm so tired of protein?

There are other ways to get protein in. The other way would be to add in a branched-chain amino acid to a lower-quality protein. This is not my first choice. I don't really advise it, but if an individual wanted to have 2 ounces of fish, say that's how they were going to eat, and they added in a branched-chain amino acid to that, it would actually improve the profile of the amino acids.

Don't BCAAs sort of take you out of ketosis?

So branched-chain amino acids, too much protein in general— branched-chain amino acids are more ketogenic, but too much protein in general can take you out of ketosis.

Got it. The other amino I mentioned earlier that I I really like for people with gut problems or migraines or headaches and all this L-glutamine, that stuff, you just take a teaspoon of it and bye-bye ketosis. It's very, very strong. But it's funny, if you eat steak, which is full of L-glutamine, it doesn't do that at all. Talk to me about the role of prebiotic soluble fiber.

So that is interesting. That probably has the best data, prebiotic fiber, as opposed to the, you know, regular fiber. As it relates.

Yeah, sawdust. Yeah, that's just kind of dumb.

Yeah, I mean, in terms of what actually should we talk about?

Well, it doesn't come from animals, even no matter how hard you squeeze them, no fiber comes out.

That's true. That would be weird.

I tried putting a ham in my juicer. I had no, no carbs came out.

I mean, prebiotic fiber can be very beneficial for gut health, you know, but it's not from animals.

The whole carnivore thing, what's going on here? I'm feeling like you're betraying the cause.

I mean, I don't know what to tell you about the prebiotic fibers.

Are they good?

I mean, I think it all depends on your gut health. I think it depends on your baseline gut health, truly. So I don't use any prebiotic fibers, really.

You don't?

Not very much, no.

And things all— everything works? So everything works down there. All right.

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I've been generally like, you know, plants are good to a certain extent, but not all plants by a long shot. And I feel like if I eliminate the plants that don't work for me, the ones that do work for me, there's good stuff in there.

So, you know, I think that, you know, I'm not inherently against plants, right? But I think that a lot of people and a lot of information is saying anti-animal, and that's absolutely the wrong narrative. And that's really where I feel the strongest, because based on my training, based on what I've seen, as it relates to plants, as long as you're eating them, quote, responsibly, fine, eat whatever, you know, eat them as you please, as long as your protein is optimized.

What we haven't talked about here is sourcing your meat. If it's not grass-fed, don't eat it. Like, industrialized meat is just a big problem. It will make you sick if you eat it. Do you agree? Am I too extreme? I mean, is it okay to just eat a little bit of industrial meat?

Well, so if I had to choose between industrial meat and an Impossible Burger, I would definitely choose the meat.

I would fast.

You know what, that's probably a better answer.

Seriously, I would— I'm like, neither of those is food. Like, like, I'm sorry, I looked there, I'm like, oh, no food on this plate. I'm not— and if there was a rock there, I wouldn't eat that either because they're not food. Right now, if I was going to be in a long-term famine situation, what would I do? Probably the industrial meat, but it does come at a cost. It comes at a cost to the planet, it comes at a cost to our own biology, and it comes at a cost to the animal. And all three of those are unacceptable. And if we all do that for long periods of time, there won't be any people because we're destroying our topsoil to feed the wrong foods to those animals, destroying our water, torturing animals, and then feeding ourselves the crap that comes out of that system, which makes us not feel good. but it's still better than if we ate the corn and the soy and, you know, the other funky carbs.

Absolutely. And the regenerative agriculture aspect is, is so important, you know, but this blows my mind. So individuals say eating red meat is bad for the environment. If you eat red meat, you're gonna, it's gonna kill the environment. The reality is the majority of all greenhouse gas comes from industry, electricity, travel, talking about 80 plus percent.

That's driven me nuts for a long time. And people are saying, oh, I'm going to do my part. And like, your part is 0.002% of the problem. And if you lower your IQ by 8 points, which by the way is very easy to do, and if no one believes me, just get drunk tonight, wake up tomorrow morning and take an IQ test. You can lower your IQ pretty easily, pretty quickly with what you put in your mouth. You can also raise it with what you put in your mouth. So let's see, let's increase our cancer risk. Let's increase our diabetes risk. Let's increase our risk of dying from falls and fractures and sarcopenia. We'll see, there's diabetes and Alzheimer's. Oh, those are both diseases of plants, i.e., excessive carbs. So you're going to do all those. Have you calculated the environmental cost of all the rubber gloves that the doctors are going to have to put on when they're treating you in the last 30 years of life? The cost of the adult diapers that you'll be consuming towards the end of your life because of your stupid dietary choices? If you don't calculate those, you are bad at math. So eat your steak.

Yes.

But if you're listening to this going, wait a minute, Dave's either totally nuts or think about the system of your food and what it does to you and what it does to the world. There is very good science and research behind this. And here we have you, Gabrielle, talking about clinical results. You see it in old people, you see it in pregnant people, you see it in women, you see it before menopause, you see it after menopause, you see it in special forces and special operators. Who would we not see this in? How about people from India? I hear this sometimes, by the way, Silicon Valley guy. Most of the companies I've worked for have been founded by people from India. And I've gone out to Indian restaurants like, but Dave, my people have been eating, you know, beans and lentils and rice and we're vegetarians. And they say this can't apply to us. Does it apply to them too?

I mean, if you're thinking about overall health, it totally applies to them. You, I mean, we're humans. We have some biological needs that should be met. And when you think about those cultures, they have very high rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes and cancer.

That is very true. And when you actually go there, there is ghee in everything. They're at least getting their fat, even if their protein numbers aren't where you would like them to be. And they are not vegan for a long shot.

You know, it's interesting to say that we shouldn't eat meat is a total privilege, right? We are so lucky to have access to the food that we have. It's a privilege.

It is a privilege. What do you say to guys like, uh, in fact, there's vanishingly few of the, the really radical doctors like, uh, Ornish, um, or David Katz and people like that, or like, you know, I've been a cardiologist, I don't pay any attention to cancer even though my diet gave Steve Jobs cancer, and I don't pay attention to any disease other than cardiology, but I know that if people just eat plants and no fat and just carbs all the time, even though they hate their lives, their odds of dying from from heart disease go down. What do you say to those arguments?

I mean, that's just the worst piece of advice, and this is in the literature. Excess carbohydrates, excess calories— this is an issue.

But the Ornish diet is the only diet that's ever been proven to reverse heart disease, according to Ornish.

I mean, this is bad information. It's bad information. But how come when you look in the literature, you have randomized controlled trials that have optimized for protein and seen improvement in cardiometabolic function and lipid profiles. I mean, there's data there.

Yeah, that's inconvenient. It's so inconvenient.

Really, if you're a good scientist, um, paid for by large soda companies, uh, like one of the guys I just mentioned, what you do is you are absolutely correct about ignoring the studies or paid for by, uh, on a TV interview with one of those physicians that you'd mentioned, and he said to me, you know, we don't need randomized control trials to tell us that running with scissors is bad for our children. I'm like, what are you talking about? We have randomized control trials that tell us that protein is good for body composition, for diabetes, for obesity. We have those trials.

But you can get protein from plants. I mean, isn't that what they're saying?

Only if you butcher the data enough that you can then change the hard, fast biological numbers, which that was actually attempted.

Okay, and it didn't really work very well, did it?

I mean, no.

Okay, well, what about this? I mean, we've, we've all seen, uh, or at least heard about, um, the propaganda films from PETA, the What the Health and Game Changers, and they always reference this one book, one of the books that influenced my decision to become a raw vegan so many years ago.

The China Study, which we know is not even— I mean, it's not even a study. So this is hand-picked epidemiological data where, you know, this guy decided to look at information from, I don't know, two different parts of China. One is totally polluted and populated and no sunlight and all the bad lifestyle behaviors you could have, and the other is the other people are living outside free, eating clean. You know, it's Again, handpicked data. These are all epidemiological data. You know, it's interesting, people use low-quality data to make vast overt statements, and those unintended consequences are brutal. Game Changers, by the way, is a total— what's the word? It's like it shouldn't even be called a documentary. It's entertainment. That stuff is so bad in that film. Starting from, starting from the gladiators who are freaking slaves. So they open the film, right? They open the film saying about how the gladiators were largely vegetarian. Those dudes were slaves. They didn't get to pick what they ate. They fattened them up so any flesh wound wouldn't kill them. It was the dumbest thing ever.

Oh my God, I never even thought about it. That's true. They did not have any freedom at all and they didn't get to choose their food.

No.

And the guy who's sitting there, the guy sitting there saying he did 1,000 hours of research, that's like the equivalent of a PhD. I, I mean, I don't even know PhDs that are doing that.

You could do 1,000 hours of research. You just watch stuff on Netflix. That's research, right?

It was just that, that film was, that film was so bad. It, it, it's entertainment, you know. People shouldn't even take it serious.

I wrote an analysis of it. I don't do takedowns, um, because it's like, I, I, I don't think that's how the world works. But I will say when something simply doesn't work or it's untrue, um, versus trying to put motives on the people who did it or personal insults and things. Those things do not contain science or facts that I can find, but they do pull on heartstrings and, you know, pictures of cigars and hot dog buns and things like that. I didn't find any science in there and What the Health. And I do know that some of the people behind the films actually went to jail for bombing people for the animal rights movement. And I'm just saying I kill less animals than people who are vegetarians with my diet that includes animals because I can eat a pound of cow every day and kill 0.3 animals a year as long as the cow is grass-fed. And there you go, guys. And the cow, by the way, no one mistreated it. I know because it's my next-door neighbor's cow. All right. So it's possible. Okay. With the China study, we, uh, I think we both agree on that. And there's been countless people out there who've looked at the data. The most important piece on there is one I think you'll really like. When I went, sat down and did a critical analysis after my first sort of wild-eyed reading of it, he says in the very first chapter, well, there's an animal protein called casein. And if you take casein, which by the way, this is a protein extracted from milk, and you give it to animals, it is the most potent carcinogenic agent that we have— or sorry, it increases the potency of the most carcinogenic agent we have, which is called aflatoxin. So you take a mold toxin, causes liver cancer. With casein, you'll get more liver cancer. Therefore, this is what I call vegan logic. Therefore, all animal protein will kill you. You're like, hold on a second. Don't different proteins do different things to different people? Don't different amino acids do different things at different times? All of those things are true, and all of those were glossed over in the first chapter. And everything else throughout the book is based on this same illogical thing that all animal proteins are the same. So in, in that mind, a piece of seal blubber is the same as a piece of cheese. And like, they're not the same thing, but in the book they are. And you just have to look at the book and say, wait a minute here, I'm being sold a bill of goods by someone who genuinely is trying to do a good thing. It's just wrong.

That's how I take on it. I would agree with you. It's wrong. And it's so interesting that it's still being put out there as science. It's not science. That's not science.

It's not science. Okay. Now I want to ask you something that's rude. How old are you?

29 forever. How about that answer?

I knew you were going to say that because I can't tell. That's why I'm asking you that. And you don't have to say, but you look phenomenally healthy. And this is something that you see from people who are eating a good quality diet with enough protein. And I got to say, with enough fat because your cells are kind of made out of that, those little cell membranes. But you can tell someone who generally has something good going on or someone who doesn't have a look of health about them. So you're doing something right. And I'm guessing that you're probably older than you look because you're doing something right. And I was going to say, wow, I never would have guessed, but that's right. You don't have to tell me. All right, Gabrielle, one final question for you. If you wanted people to remember 2 things, 2 major takeaways from your body of work, the most important ones, what would they be?

Optimized protein per meal distribution. 50 grams of protein per meal, no matter your age, no matter what.

What about body weight?

I mean, it doesn't matter. Great question. I know this is kind of the end, but it, it doesn't matter.

So my 90-pound Asian woman friend who's 60, and I should have 50 grams, and we're both going to get that. What the heck? Okay, I know this is the end of the show, but you got to tell me why it does better that I'm 200 pounds.

This is a really important point because protein is based on the amino acids. We're really not eating for protein. We're really eating for those amino acids. Hitting that leucine threshold is the most important thing that you can do to maintain your tissue. As you age, the ability to sense leucine goes down. It's called an anabolic resistance. It's something that happens in the cells. It just happens. So, in order to overcome that threshold, you actually become resistant to protein. When you hit 50 grams per meal, you likely overcome that anabolic threshold, that anabolic resistance.

Okay.

Yes, you could.

Just take a bunch of leucine with my meal and just be done with it?

But then, you're out of balance. You're now taking leucine. You've got the other branched-chain amino acids. That's not ideal. But if you—

okay, so you're looking at the ratio of all the aminos and you're saying 50 grams no matter your body weight. Okay, that's your, that's your first of your recommendations. That is more than I typically recommend based on body weight, but we are, we are learning from your knowledge. I'll even try it. See what happens.

Oh my God, I would love it. I want to hear. The second most important thing is train hard enough to get a metabolic adaptation. Interval training. Is absolutely key because muscle is the organ of longevity.

And you love this interval training.

Yes, you have to stimulate the tissue.

Okay, so good. We can get rid of the eat plants and run long distances like you're being chased by a carnivore trying to eat you. Doesn't work.

Do not train to retreat.

So train to eat the carnivore trying to eat you. Got it. Your website is Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. That's L-Y-O-N, despite the fact that you might be training to be a carnivore. And I gotta say, I appreciate your clinical perspective on this stuff. You clearly have done your research and it's very intriguing to think about shifting, oh, this month I'm gonna be high protein, moderate fat, and then next month, high fat, moderate protein, and sort of going back and forth. Never tried that. Never thought of that. Now you got my mind spinning. And the same thing, 50 grams of protein per meal is also an interesting thing. So I may just add I think that would probably be like 3 scoops of collagen per meal just to make sure for my lunch and dinner.

So I would actually try to get it through skeletal meat. I would track it.

That won't be a problem. You know how much like really high-quality pork we have?

Amazing.

It sells out at all the local stores because it's our pigs and our pigs eat the Bulletproof Diet. They intermittent fast, they get Brain Octane and charcoal. So I have no shortage. Oh man. Some of that stuff.

I mean, I would love to see. So, you know, 50 grams is what, 7 times? So it's around 7 ounces. You could easily crush that per meal.

Oh, it won't be a problem. Ribeye, here I come. All right. Thank you for being on the show. Thanks for your work. I mentioned your URL already, but thank you, drgabriellion.com. You have like a weekly newsletter and all that kind of stuff.

I do. And if they're interested in the work that I do with special operations, they should definitely check out Task Force Dagger.

Task Force Dagger. Oh, you didn't mention that before. What is that?

So Task Force Dagger is a non-for-profit organization that helps special operations as it relates to functional medicine.

Oh, very cool.

They're amazing. So if you are interested in the work that I do there and interested in them, that's an amazing organization.

Well, thank you for helping the people who help, and have a wonderful day.

See you next time.

On the Human Upgrade podcast.

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